Tuesday, September 3, 2013

All good things to those who wait

JUSTINO GOT BAPTIZED!!!

1 year.

Hna. O'Keeffe and me.

End of Alma party.

Familia y amigos,

BIG NEWS: Justino got BAPTIZED!!!!!!! He decided
earlier in the week and was baptized on Thursday August 29th! It was a
very special day. Seeing him dressed in white and enter the waters of baptism,
was the closest I have come to feeling the same joy I felt when the Monzons were
baptized. I may or may not have cried a little. And to see how happy
Justino was! He really feels a difference in his life. He missed
church on Sunday which means he still has not received the Holy Ghost but we
have a lesson with him tonight.

Which leads me to my other news, I am staying in Barrio 8
(never in all of my mission have I been in an area this long! I am SO
excited!) with Hna. O´keeffe. I am also very excited to be with her
another transfer! She is my hija after all!

Hna. Manner got transfered to Barrio 4 in northern madrid
and Hna. Seastrand is staying in Barrio 8 and training. They actually cut
our area in half and she will be working in the other half. Which means
they cleaned out their area. So me and Hna. O´keeffe will be teaching all
of the investigators we found this transfer and all the ones the other Hnas
found. So we will be VERY busy.

I guess this is a blessing from God for working this transfer
and not really seeing much from it. This whole transfer we have taught
lessons, but we do not have one single investigator progressing and we haven´t
this whole transfer. But that will change with the new investigators we
have received and with the plans we have to work really hard! And involve
the ward!

I do feel bad for the other Hermanas because they worked
hard this transfer and then they had to give everything up to us. It is not
fair, and I don´t like it to be this way.

Also, I am no longer a Hna. Leader trainer. So this
will be a more calm transfer.

This week was pretty good. We taught like 4 lessons, but we
worked hard and enjoyed the week. We did find one guy that was super
cool.

We went to visit a referal we had but we didn´t find him
home so we started talking to this guy washing his car. He is from
Paraguay and has had an amazingly hard life. He lost his dad at a young
age and his house burnt down, and almost killed him. Most of the skin on his
body is damaged, but he survived the fire.

He has soooo much faith in God and a lot of what he told us
he believed to be true, coincided with what we KNOW to be true! I am
soooo excited to teach him (and his family--he has 4 kids!!!) and give him more
understanding to the life he has had to live. But the best part is, he
works for the radio and he was talking to us about how we shouldn´t share the
message with just him, but with everyone!

He wants us to go on the radio for 10 or 15 minutes and
share our message. He told us to talk to our pastor and get like 5 or 6
of us to come talk on the radio. We talked to the ayudantes (assistants
to the president) and they talked to President. President wants us to
call him today and we are going to talk about it. I would LOVE the chance
to talk on the radio (yeah, that is how confident I am in my Spanish....who am
I???).

Nothing is finaly yet, and i don´t know what President will
say, so I am trying not to get my hopes up yet, but how cool would that be???

We got to go to the temple! It was a treat as always!
I LOVE the temple! The spirit is soo strong. This church is
soooo true! I know it is, and I am trying to let everyone else know it as
well! I incourage you all to share the gospel with those who are searching
for more! Everybody needs this message!